This Norwegian act may not have quite the same high profile as some of their peers but nevertheless they have a place in the black metal tome of history. Back in the day they put out a couple of demos before going on a long hiatus due to band-founder Snorre Ruch earning himself an eight year prison sentence for driving everyone’s favourite naughty Nazi Varg Vikernes to murder Euronymous. Upon his release the band reformed and did a split with Emperor before releasing their debut album in 2001. The follow-up to that has not yet surfaced although there was talk a couple of years back about it when the band were working on new material. One has to wonder therefore if this re-issue of their debut album is a precursor for a new release?
On to the album then and having missed out first time round this was a real treat. ‘Existence’ blows in with a whirlwind of thorny guitars, electrical sparks flying amidst the chaos as a fierce drum marches beneath the surface sounding truly menacing. The vocals are forced out spewing utter hatred, on ‘World Playground Deceit’ which has that Mayhem-esque evil emanating from within the chaos, before all comes together to steamroll forth with a mighty driving thud. ‘Shifting Channels’ comes in via a dark, brooding melody which drives forth with the continual steel clanging giving off a kind of mechanical feel. The blackened sound is fortified with an industrial backbone, the martial drum stomp really helps give off a powerful sound which comes across considerably well on ‘Underneath The Universe’ which marches its way in through the darkness and pulls out through the other end leaving us to float within an eerie cosmos as the stars and debris pass by. Things all become rather ambient around this point and it’s one of those moments where you want to just let the music aid your mind through its own astral plane.
‘Interface To God’ spirals off into a vortex of frenzied riffs, furious drums and general blasphemous mayhem, before Ruch really puts his point across through booming spoken verse. ‘Vortex’ takes things to a really dark and frightening place where one can imagine demons might dwell…it’s a slow journey allowing one to fully take in the creepy ambience and keep up the suspense while taking the main album out to a grim and apocalyptic end.
In addition to the main album this re-issue has two bonus tracks from their 2000 demo, the track ‘TSOS’ and a rough version of ‘Existence’ as well as a video for ‘Vortex’. As is often the case it would not be enough to tempt me to buy if I owned the original release, but hopefully this re-issue will get the bands music out there to a new audience. It is an excellent album and if you don’t own it then you really need to rectify that now.
http://www.myspace.com/thornsband
Luci Herbert
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